


The Probability of Ducks

by thingswithwings



Category: Good Omens
Genre: Gen, M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2004, recipient:Hetty Jay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-25
Updated: 2004-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the beginning, there were probably ducks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Probability of Ducks

_In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God._

I don't know that this is going to work.

 _In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not._

No, this is definitely not going to work. Try again.

 _13.7 billion years ago, the entirety of our universe was compressed into the confines of an atomic nucleus known as a singularity, infinitely dense and infinitely small. This is the moment before creation when space and time did not exist. According to the prevailing cosmological models that explain our universe, an ineffable explosion, trillions of degrees in temperature on any measurement scale, created not only fundamental subatomic particles - and thus matter and energy - but also space and time themselves._

That's not really any better, and you know it. Third time lucky, though.

 _In the beginning, there were probably ducks._

Now we're getting somewhere.

*

"In the beginning," Aziraphale intoned, "there were probably ducks."

Crowley frowned. On the other side of the parlour, Lady Humphrey's favourite medium was preparing to bring forth the spirit of some dead relative or other, but judging by the still-low volume of the psychic's moans, Crowley thought they had a while to wait. He decided to pretend, momentarily, that his angelic acquaintance was merely drunk on good sherry and not entirely out of his mind.

"I don't think I remember ducks in the beginning," Crowley answered eventually, trying to keep half an eye on the seance.

He tried to remember Adam naming ducks ducks, but couldn't do it. He remembered a finger pointed in his direction and a shrill voice shouting "Snake! Snake! It's a snake!" and he remembered thinking _alright, so I'm a bloody snake already, we get it, move on,_ but that was about the limit of his recollection.

Aziraphale grinned his plump little grin and nodded.

"That's precisely what I mean, dear boy, don't you see? We don't remember ducks, they're far too ubiq...unbin...ubink...common, aren't they? But there were probably ducks. Ducks are always probable. They're dependable that way."

As he spoke, Aziraphale nodded his head enthusiastically, urging Crowley to agree with his duck-catechism. Behind him, as if to punctuate his statement, the spirit-medium lost control of her upper body and collapsed on the table as her eyes rolled back in her head. The voice that emerged from her mouth was now deeper, more masculine, even otherworldly.

Crowley smiled at the angel as he got up to join the circle. "I guess I hadn't really considered it. Ducks."

*

"What I mean to say," Aziraphale continued, "is that ducks don't need to have always existed in order to give the impression that they have always existed. That is the genius of ducks."

Crowley looked up from his new car long enough to raise an eyebrow. "I thought you were over that whole praising creation thing."

Aziraphale flushed slightly and lowered his eyes. Crowley turned his attention back to the Bentley, which purred comfortingly when he turned the key. The road opened before them, warm and black in the cool air.

*

 _And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great._

Or, to be concise, there was an apocalypse. And, though ducks played a role, they were hardly noticed in all the commotion. Apocalypses are busy things.

*

The bread bobbed on the surface, soggy and certainly unappetizing. Nonetheless, a duck eventually turned its attention on it, proving that ducks, whatever their standing in the Halls of Creation, had no taste whatsoever. The old man who had thrown the bread was smiling.

"If I can't remember ducks," Crowley began carefully, "I can hardly be supposed to have missed them."

Aziraphale sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly. "Maybe it's not ducks themselves that you miss."

"You mean, I have a sense of fruitless longing for the possibility of ducks."

"Or the fact of ducks."

"Ah."

They sat in silence, watching the man, the bread, and the waterfowl.

"Aziraphale?"

"Yes?"

"Your metaphor sucks."

Aziraphale tossed a piece of pumpernickel like a rhetorical gambit.

*

Outside of the ship, beyond its windows, the sacrifice proceeded apace. A small starship had become caught in the event horizon of a black hole, its fuel cells depleting gradually as it fought the extreme gravitational forces. Five people - two of whom were Terrans - sat quietly in the cockpit and watched the fuel gauges gradually decline.

And so this ship, a cruise liner, had diverted its course in order to provide its passengers with some unusual entertainment. Aziraphale and Crowley watched with the rest of the tourists for the moment when the ship would disappear, along with the eddies of light, into an infinite weight compressed into an infinite absence of space.

"They'll live forever," one of the tourists murmured. "They'll feel time begin to slow, and time will continue to slow infinitely. The moment at which they become part of..." she hesitated, "part of it, that moment will exist forever."

In the language the woman was speaking, there was no word for _ducks._ But there were words for _feather_ and for _water_ and for _flying._

Crowley waited for the ship to disappear into the blackness. When it did, he ignored the cheers around him and turned back to the angel.

"It seems silly to put faith in feathers and water and flying," he said, grinning ruefully as the word _ducks_ emerged from the cobwebs in his mind.

Aziraphale shrugged. Then, getting up from the table, he bent to kiss Crowley's forehead before walking up to the bar to get them each a refill.

Crowley let the feeling of the angel's presence linger on his skin.

  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Probability of Ducks [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/375347) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




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